Trump may tout coal as clean, but experts say there's no such thing

During his event on coal Thursday in the Oval Office, President Donald Trump is expected to announce the allocation of over $700 million in federal funds to upgrade coal power plants and U.S. exports, according to a White House official.

Using wartime authorities under the 1950 Defense Production Act, the administration will allot $425 million to 13 existing coal plants and $75 million for an export terminal in California. He is also expected to announce $185 million in grant funding from the Energy Department to build two new coal plants in Alaska and West Virginia and restart a plant in Maryland, according to the official.

Echoing the administration's previous coal-related announcements, the White House is once again calling the energy source "Beautiful, Clean Coal." But in reality, there is no such thing as clean coal, according to experts and emissions data.

While Trump is correct that coal is an abundant, energy-dense resource and that the U.S. has more of it than any other country, it is also a fossil fuel that emits carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, when burned. The burning of coal is a direct contributor to global warming and human-amplified climate change.

Coal emissions can also lead to health and environmental issues, including respiratory illness, lung disease, acid rain, smog, and neurological and developmental damage, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Energy Information Administration (EIA).

The U.S. Department of Energy says coal-fired electricity has become “cleaner than ever.” However, it still produces significant greenhouse gas emissions and pollutes the environment with coal ash, according to EIA. The EIA found that in 2022, coal accounted for more than half of the CO2 emissions from the U.S. electric power industry.

Michelle Solomon, senior policy analyst at Energy Innovation, told ABC News that “clean coal” is a bit of a misnomer, sometimes referring to technologies that physically clean coal before it is burned and sometimes meaning devices that capture carbon after it's released.

"Burning coal could never be technically considered clean regardless of the treatment applied to it before combustion – it will always emit the largest concentration of greenhouse gases of any fossil fuel, and soil and water pollution from coal and coal ash (what's left after it's burned) will never go away,” Solomon said. “Even the best technologies that reduce air pollutants like sulfur and nitrogen oxides still allow many of these to get through."

These technologies are also not widely used in the U.S. According to